The present invention relates to the field of pharmaceutical packaging, more particularly, to the aspect of inserting a packing filler such as cotton into a bottle containing tablets to prevent damage to the tablets during handling and shipping.
In the past, it has been known to insert a filler such as cotton into bottles containing tablets or pills. It is to be understood that rayon may be used in place of cotton, and that the term xe2x80x9ccottonxe2x80x9d as used herein means actual cotton or a cotton substitute such as rayon. Automated machines have been developed and are in use to insert cotton into each bottle in the process of packaging pharmaceutical pills for retail sale. Cotton or cotton-like filler material has been found desirable because of its resiliency and deformability to act as internal packing in the bottle, to reduce or eliminate movement of the pills or tablets in the bottle during subsequent handling in manufacturing, distribution and sales. However such cotton inserting machines suffered from a deficiency in that the cotton, being somewhat resilient, would tend to partially eject itself from the bottle immediately upon retraction of the inserting implement, causing difficulty in the operation of the machine. When the cotton rebounds and extends above the neck of the bottle after withdrawal of the insertion pusher, the projecting cotton was observed to interfere with the operation of the cottoner machine by catching or snagging on the cotton fill tube, causing the bottle to become misoriented with respect to the machine. This problem is particularly exacerbated when relatively small diameter cotton is used with relatively large diameter mouth bottles. It has been found desirable to use such small diameter cotton with large mouthed bottles to reduce or avoid the need for multiple diameters of cotton for use with various sized bottles. In the present situation, using small diameter cotton having a cross section of between 1 and 2 inches for xe2x80x9c20 grxe2x80x9d (20 grams/yard rayon) with wide mouthed bottles (having an opening of about 2{fraction (7/16)} inches diameter) has resulted in jam rates of between about 25 percent of the throughput. Such a jam rate is of course unacceptable.
It has been further observed that projecting cotton causes difficulty in subsequent closure of the bottle, typically by means of a cap carrying a safety seal therewithin, typically secured by induction heating and requiring an unobstructed contact between the safety seal and the top rim of the bottle.
When the cotton remained in the bottle, the closure would be able to be accomplished satisfactorily, with the cap threaded onto the bottle and the safety seal secured to the rim of the top of the bottle. However, cotton protruding substantially above the rim of the bottle top was found to interfere with the closure process, including securing the safety seal to the bottle top.
The present invention overcomes the shortcoming of the automated machines described above, by preventing substantial escape and protrusion of the cotton above the bottle top immediately after the cotton is inserted into the bottle. It is only necessary to temporarily contain the cotton in connection with the cottoner machine environment of the present invention since the machine typically has a second pusher downstream of the cotton inserter pusher to xe2x80x9crepackxe2x80x9d the cotton in the bottle neck prior to closure of the bottle at a further downstream station. With the present invention, jam rates have been observed to fall to something less than about one out of sixty bottles, or less than 0.0166 percent, while still using relatively small cotton diameter in relatively large diameter opening bottles. Use of a single size cotton has the advantage of reducing the sizes of cotton needed for a range of bottles to be processed of about 2 inches to about 2xc2xe inches mouth diameter in the Cottoner machine.